Experts urge people to adopt climate friendly behaviour

HYDERABAD:

The environmental experts have urged the people to modify their lifestyle by adhering to a climate friendly behavior, which helped reduce their carbon footprint on earth. Speaking at a seminar organised by Sindh Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) in Hyderabad's Mumtaz Mirza Auditorium on Friday evening, they cautioned that the government's initiatives alone will fail to efficiently mitigate the consequences of climate change.

"The government banned polythene bags but the people are still using these bags copiously," SEPA's 's Director General Waqar Hussain Phulpoto lamented. He also shared an instance of living in a cleaner environment during his childhood but the same place became polluted decades later due to hazardous public activities.

"When I was in class six, we used to drink water from a watercourse in our village because it was clean and pure," he recalled. "A couple of decades later when I visited my agricultural land I noticed the same water has turned polluted because of excessive use of toxic pesticides."

"And then I also got to see fish dying in those waterways," he bewailed. He gave another illustration of how an inclination to wear jeans fabric contributed to rapid depletion of water resources because even the making of a single pair of jeans consumed hundreds of litres of water. The DG asserted that the only effective way to deal with climate change is by reverting to nature-based solutions.

Phulpoto said the provincial government on its part is spending billions of rupees on climate financing and green energy.

He pointed out that Sindh required around 6,000 megawatt electricity of which it is already generating around 2,000 MW from wind alone. He urged people to plant trees, minimise the use of electricity and reduce their carbon footprint.

Vice Chancellor of Sindh Agriculture University (SAU), Tandojam, Engr Prof Dr Altaf Ali Siyal elaborated that Sindh faced three types of floods unlike any other province in Pakistan.